http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
I'VE NEVER BEFORE been ashamed of my government, even when I've disagreed
with its leaders or opposed its policies. But the specter of U.S. Marshals
whisking away a 6-year-old boy so that he can be sent to live in a virtual
prison fills me with shame. Unless Attorney General Janet Reno changes her
mind, that is exactly what will happen to Elian Gonzalez in the next few
days. That Cuba is a prison is beyond dispute, which is why thousands of
Cubans have risked -- and lost -- their lives escaping the island since
Fidel Castro seized power 40 years ago.

Why is the U.S. government directing all its power to condemn this small
boy to a life without freedom when he has already suffered so much? Reno's
explanation is that she is simply trying to reunite the boy with his
father -- a man who divorced the boy's mother in 1991, several years before
Elian was even born, and never lived with the boy. But is this the full
story?

By now, much of Elian's tale is all too familiar to most Americans. Just
before Thanksgiving, two Florida fishermen found Elian floating in an inner
tube along the Florida coast, his mother and all but two other companions
drowned at sea on their harrowing escape from communist Cuba. The
Immigration and Naturalization Service then turned over Elian to the custody
of his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who lives in Miami, while the service
determined the boy's status. The next day, a man identifying himself as
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, demanded that his son be returned to
Cuba. At the same time, the family with whom Elian was now staying began
application for U.S. asylum for Elian.

On Jan. 5, the commissioner of the INS notified the father that he would be
returned to Cuba, and rejected the asylum request filed on Elian's behalf,
decisions that were upheld by Attorney General Janet Reno. Despite a series
of legal skirmishes in and out of court, nothing has changed in the
government's position in months.

What's missing in this account, however, is any effort by Reno or anyone
else in the government to interview Elian himself or any member of the
family with whom the boy has been living since November. As Lazaro Gonzalez
pointed out recently in a letter to the attorney general, Reno has taken
time off from her very busy schedule to meet with Juan Miguel Gonzalez, a
foreign citizen and his lawyer, and with Elian's grandmothers, also foreign
citizens. "Notwithstanding the time you have taken to meet with the Cuban
members of the family, you have steadfastly refused to meet with any members
of our American family and our counsel," he wrote. Why is it that our
highest government officials are willing to make themselves available to
Cubans, but obstinately balk at meeting with American citizens over the same
issue?

Perhaps even more peculiar, the U.S. State Department has asked the Secret
Service to provide a security detail to protect the home of Cuban diplomats,
where Juan Miguel Gonzalez is currently staying in Bethesda, Md., while he
awaits transfer of his son. Normally, the Secret Service provides security
only to diplomatic missions with whom the United States has reciprocal
relations, for protection of our missions abroad. The United States has no
such agreement with Cuba, with whom we don't even maintain diplomatic
relations. In order to justify providing such protection, the State
Department had to declare the Cuban's home a "temporary mission," according
to Jim Mackin, the public affairs spokesman for the Secret Service with whom
I spoke.

But from exactly what or whom are the Secret Service protecting Gonzalez?

Some members of Congress have suggested that Gonzalez's lawyer, Greg
Craig -- who just happens to be President Clinton's personal lawyer, as
well -- gave Castro assurances that Gonzalez would not defect while in the
United States, and the Secret Service is there to make sure he doesn't. Can
this allegation be true? Who knows. What is known is that uniformed Secret
Service agents have prevented Juan Miguel Gonzalez's American uncle from
approaching the home to speak with him about Elian.

When officials of the U.S. government decide their first duty is deference
to the wishes and demands of Cuban officials, while ignoring the rights of
American citizens to petition their own government, they bring shame on the
country they are sworn to
serve.